Can’t Buy Me Love

Back in January 1964 the Beatles released a track called “can’t buy me love” which considering the money they have made since then and the fame they have enjoyed, probably wasn’t strictly true. Certainly they have enjoyed a kind of loving, revered by millions of people in countless countries worldwide.

The same can be said for a select few football clubs, whose names are for ever lodged in the hearts of lovers of the game, even those football fans too young or too far away to have seen them play, in those pre satellite days, knew of them by reputation.

So clubs like Real Madrid who dominated the emerging European cup for years, whilst introducing the world to a new breed of footballer, led by the legendary pair, De Stefano and Puskas. Herbert Chapman perhaps the first of the great managers assembled the Highbury heroes who elevated our club to greatness. The Manchester Utd of Busby babe’s fame, Cloughies Forest, Shankley’s Liverpool and even the Spurs in their push and run heyday. Our own invincible’s of recent times would be included as would Fergies Utd and their dominance of the Premier league since its inception, along with today’s European club champions the exhilarating and exciting Barcelona, who include every fans dream player the superbly gifted Messi goal poacher extraordinaire in their ranks.

All have earned their place in history by style, grit, skill and pure entertainment to be read, remembered and talked about by football fans of all hues and nationalities with admiration and respect wherever our beautiful game is played and studied.

How sad then that on Sunday, whilst watching the Chelsea and City millionaires perform, I felt no admiration or respect, just a kind of pity that these magnificent players had succumbed to the power of the oil buck. The very fact that Fergies finest had been done for 6 by his so-called noisy neighbours, after themselves doing us for 8 a few weeks ago didn’t cheer me up. Nor seeing Chelsea’s arrogant superstars have their nose put out of joint, by a combination of questionable refereeing, a bunch of hastily gathered journeymen pros and a manager who is reputably about as welcome in football circles as a fart in a space suit. None of these facts raised even a smile.

Rather it produced a degree of real sadness, especially for those loyal City fans including my own son who have been waiting a lifetime to win the league and here they are excitedly watching their newly purchased heroes showing the ability to do just that. Whilst the rest of the football world looks on with a kind of studied contempt, that the glories that others have earned by patience, hard work and natural progression, could well be short circuited, devalued and sullied by the excesses of individuals who possess the kind of wealth that many nations would give their eye teeth to have as their GDP.

How frightening therefore to realise that a significant number of our fans would gladly, see our own lurking Russian unceremoniously installed in a position of power in the boardroom at the Emirates. This, his reward for a promise to sign the cheques and superstars we supposedly need to compete, distributing his oily roubles across the football world. For the love of the club I wonder or with the sole purpose of basking in the reflected glory of the myriad trophies his supporters say we are guaranteed to win?

What these individuals who call for such change seem not to understand is, we like John, Paul, George and Ringo, don’t have to buy love, because we with our tradition and style have already earned it.

Nice one DD, eloquently wrote with a steely undertone of your principles at the helm. I agree with much but harbour thoughts of how we could even up the financial doping through a more considered approach to our business. The only area we struggle with is matching wages, wenger has proved consistently that you don’t have to splash absolute millions, arguing he wants value at a fair price.
So is there no way we can offset some of costs ? So we can compete with these inflated wages, to get so close then fall into the background would be gut wrenching.

My stomach turns at the thought of us getting into bed with Usmanov, and buying a trophy.

There’sa certain pride and joy that I feel watching £2.75m RVP in an Arsenal shirt – knowing that he could earn 2-3 times more money elsehwere, but he’s here at Arsenal….cos we love him and he loves us. Then I look at £50m Torres. Loved by Chelski fans..?? I think not

Fabregas going home to Barcelona and giving up money to do so, further underlines your point.

You do very well to do that. I hardly talk about Arsenal with anyone bar Wonderman and another mate. So I guess I’m lucky like you that I do not have endless debates with people about how spending will fix everything.

I agree about the money although I completely enjoyed the mancscum get a spanking by shitty. The mancs have bought the most expensive players for years and broken the transfer record lots of times. I also enjoyed the chavs losing. What a bunch of whingers they are. Totally classless manager too. If we can’t win the league I’m fine with shitty winning it.

Dandan – magnifico! Superb post, almost brought tears to my eyes. I must confess that I am guilty of wanting the Uzbek taking over and us buying a few trophies. But you are right, whatever we have is more precious because it was earned not given.

Superb post that gets to the nub of what being part of Arsenal means. – Tradition, hard work, genuine competitiveness and organic progress through sustainable business management. Long may it continue. The rewards will come – AGAIN!. The doom mongering, instant gratification glory hunters should be ashamed of themselves. That includes those that boo their own club.

Best time for us to take on the Chelskis – Terry in trouble again, Drogba missing, no Eissien. Meanwhile Vermaelen on the comback, RVP scoring for fun and we are on the up. Arsenal also the team that has had the most wins at Stamford Bridge in the PL.

As for the boardroom side of things – at least we dont have owners like Blackburn or Newcastle…

Pat,
Agree totally on the timing of going to the Bridge. We are on a wee role, and if anyone had asked me “would you take on Chavs without Jack in exchange for them playing without Drogba”, the answer would be “every time”. We have a settled confident team. I am experiencing a feeling and its a good one.

Matt. I know this is BOF (boring old fart) stuff but I don’t go to Arsenal or support Arsenal because they are the most successful team – if that were the case I would be a Manc. No, I chose my tribe and have stuck with them through thick and thin and tens of thousands of pounds because I love my club and all they represent; honesty, tradition, respect and endeavour to achieve.

We all want the best for Arsenal and thankfully the BOD (at present) have prioritised independant financial security over the MC route. I believe they are right.

As DD says – money can’t buy you love though it may buy you a diamond ring my friend.

In an ideal world Arsenal would be owned by us supporters. As long as the people who own the club do not extract dividends or lump some dodgy loan or financial instrument upon us to extract money, i personaly can tolorate their ownership. They can make there money when they sell there shares to someone else just like Dein, Fizman and Bracewell Smith did.

BR I have for about 25 years signed all birthday/christmas cards to my Daughter as “BOF” ever since, I overheard her tell her then boyfriend, I was a boring old fart because I had refused to let her go out as she had GCE exams the next day and needed an early night. Her own boys are of A level age now, doesnt time fly. :-)

Micky I’ll say it for you , Matt is that all ?
I pay a lot more than that, but what ive noticed over recent seasons is the increase in “consumers” they pay their money and demand a return and relate everything to money, statements like ” sixty grand a week and he can’t pass a ball!” are routinely heard, as was said above, I support my team win lose or draw !!!!!!!

Right, in view of today’s masterpiece from Dandan I approached a Shitty supporter, nice guy, intelligent and reasonable, hence the balanced opinion. I asked him if he enjoyed Sunday humiliation of United as much as he would have enjoyed it before the petro dollar reign.

He told me that because it was United, he enjoyed every 6 goals and prayed for more, no qualms about the source of money. However, he said that as a Shitty supporter he would love a manager like Wenger, who wouldn’t? So, happy as they are, they are still envious of our beloved Club :) We are still a shinning example to others, trophies or not

Usmanov is either known as a criminal jailed 6 years for bribery and corruption, or as a patriotic philanthropist who has spent millions of pounds buying Russian art and donating it to Russian museums.

He made his biilions in precious metals, iron ore, steel, natural gas and media.

To reflect on our history as being pure is simply avoiding the obvious truth that the man who took us to Highbury was also a criminal who got banned from football for his illegal payments to players and other escapades.

It was illegally paid wages etc that moved us away from the rest of the league, so in many ways our achievements of the 30’s are tainted by illegality and not as pure as we would like to believe.
Many of those players would not have been at Arsenal if it were not for their specail pay packets.

I suport Arsenal FC and have for many years but that doesn’t mean i have to agree with everything Wenger and the board say.

I want them to justify the prices they charge and want to know why we dont spend our transfer budget and am fed up with them telling us everything is great when the facts dont support this.We seem to enjoy taking City’s money though,no morals about that.

We used to have class but not anymore not with this mob in charge. Didn’t you see Hill-Wood embarrising the club at the AGM yesterday ?Nobody can guarantee winning but giving yourself the best chance should be a pre-requisite for Arsenal.

G5,
For the moment lets go down the “jailed for six years” route, and then ask the question if a squeaky clean squillionnaire came along, would we feel differently? My money says that if we resisted for five years only to see that Spuds, Villa, Newcastle, Wolves and Cardiff had all taken the cash and the fair play rules were ineffective then we probably would. As for Sir Henry, can we discreetly avoid the subject?

Is that right Terry? Well how come we had £40million available at the start of the last Transfer window but ended up making a £20 million pound profit yet again.

Stoke,Spurs,Everton etc have spent more money in the transfer window than us in the last 7 years and in that time we have gone backwards to the point Spurs have a better squad than us now and they started a mile behind us.

Matt, the money you talk about relates to player transfers and wages. Wages rose by £13 million last year, and if we are to keep our better players wages will continue to rise. We also have some money left over to buy in January.

There are 3 other factors to consider. Firstly (without property inciome) we currently breakeven. Secondly, the shareholders do not extract any income from the club. Thirdly, the world economy could go to pot, its good to have something in reserve dont you think?

As i said Matt, i understand your frustrations, but dont think for a minute that the people who run the club are some sort of cowboys or are lacing there pockets. They are desperate for the club to do well, just like you and me.

Happy Friday all. Heading to London in 9 hours and land about 4 hours before kickoff Saturday. Any recs as to which Arsenal pub to watch the match and get lunch? We’re staying near Farringdon stop, which apparently is closed. Oh well. Hope our good streak continues. Cheers and thanks in advance for the recs.

Hi Matt, how many times does Wenger have to demonstrate that amount of money spent does not in itself provide success. So what if they have spent more than us. Didn’t Chelski spend £30m on Schevchenko? And didn’t Man U spend a fortune on Veron. I am not particularly happy with our board at the moment, but what matters is on the pitch. If you have ever ran a football team of any description you would know that to have as many ins and outs as we have had this season was always going to take time to gel….as for your assertion that sp*rs have a better squad than us, how have you come to that conclusion ?

I know I’m one of the few non accountants on here but if you say we’ve got say 40m for transfers surely you can only include the wages for 1 year. You can’t include a cost for the next 4 years in one years budget.

GM, you make a good point. Arsenals model should not be looked on as rigid, in other words players wages are only sustainable in the longer term if enough revenues are generated in the future to cover the cost. If you take the premise that say next year, your profit will remain the same, but a player will cost say £10 million, and wages say £10 million you will need £20 million in the bank to cover the transfer and the wages.

The point is that players wages and transfer fees are inextricatbly linked and that Arsenal must factor in the total cost of a new player before purchase. This process can be very complicated, especialy when dealing with large busineses with multi million pound turnovers.

The harsh reality is that with our current finances we cannot go and splash on players unless we sell. Wages is the killer.

If life were a movie, then Arsenal’s idea of playing beautiful football along with the strict, but fair, financial sanctions we have in place would emerge victorious in the end. I just worry that the billions available to others could see us fall short.

One things for sure though, if Arsenal do manage to succeed in these doped surroundings, then the team will be remembered for years to come.

GM, try not to look at it like that. If your revenues didn’t increase over the period to cover the new players wages, you would have to exhaust all your reserves (money in the bank) to pay that player over the life of his contract. If your revenues increase you may not have to dip into the fund. Arsenal budget in a conservitive way, and i think this is were a lot of the frustrations lie. Do we borrow money?, should the owners inject money? Should we be more carefree with the money that we have? At the moment the Board seem determined to stick with there current policy.

LB,
I see AA as the twenty minute man with Theo starting. The letters BFG still make me laugh just as the Little’n’Large pic at the top does. I assume our RB will be up against Mata, so I would go for Koz and go for Verm central.

Very good post. I wonder If any of the past great teams mentioned had any “sugar daddy ” ( sorry RA ) Influence in them day`s ?.
I would rather any other team (except spuds ) win the EPL than the Chavs or City, including Manu, I dont take any pleasure from their 6-1 defeat. It was a victory for Sheik Deepwells.

I know I keep saying It, but our only hope Is FFP. So I will be judging oil well…sorry how well we can do and be competative In 3 to 5 years time.
I , like most of you, do not want to be run like the 2 oiley`s above, but If in 5 years time the FFP has been a complete waste of time, then what do we do ?, we will be more than 5 years behind playing more catch up. Then we may have to join the Soul Sold brigade.
If any of our fine AA accountants have any idea`s how we will then be able to compete without selling our Souls, then please tell.
Micky @ 9:53 am . If you “avoid their sort “, you wont be speaking to evonne any more!.
evonne @10:50am , try to avoid being a sort! :)

GLiC – I will try, but it is sometimes, only sometimes that I wish we could put a few more winning announcements at the Ems. I am sure that we will, have no doubt about it, but as they say ‘patience is a virtue seldom found in a man, NEVER in a woman’ :)

Not me, Evonne, though I’ve just noticed that it sold out to gold/platinum/away club members with 5+ away credits so we may have been able to get a ticket.

Norwich away has sold out to gold/platinum/away club members with 20+ credits. And they were charging £45, I think.

Wigan away was the next one we were considering, but we’ve seen a 2-3 defeat in the last ten minutes and that horrible 2-2 draw last Christmas in the last two seasons, so it isn’t a fixture filled with happy omens.

Will be interesting to see if AW thinks Rosickys recent revival is worthy of a starting berth in place of Ramsey. Rosicky has been a revelation for me this season, dare I say, back to something like his best!

The “straight red” terminology came in when a player who got a red card for dangerous play was suspended for 3 games.
A player may have already had one yellow card, but for an incident deemed dangerous play they would get an immediate red card (3 game ban). If shown another yellow, then it would be an automatic 1 game ban.

A last man red card (denying a clear goalscoring opportunity) has always been a 1 game ban, but for some reason the commentators call it a straight red thus confusing us all.

alot of focus needs to be put into keeping bosingwa and cole back, so hopefully gerv and walcott will get into good positions early, so they are hesitant!

Torres will stick to BFG which could be a problem with our high line and djourou as support.

For that very reason i’d go:

djourou-kozza-verm-santos

Arteta-song-ramsey

walcott-rvp-gerv

Song also has to track fat franks movement in and around the box because his shooting is good (god whenever i think of tracking midfield movements i think back to denilson jogging and letting jenas/bale through and scoring, its the stuff of nightmares).

What ever the outcome today we win. I respect Chelsea, not for the Abramovich era, but for the die hard Chelsea fans ive known for over thirty yeaars.Many gooners will not agree, but i wish them well.

If we look deeply at it, and without bias,i think we all see that at the end history will acknowledge we are the greatest club in the world. We all know this is true and the only thing i ask is that when when it happens,and it will be soon, we act with the dignity and virtue that has taken us there. Remember who we are, we are Arsenal.

Rocky,
Tommy Gunner :-)
.
Here’s the first real measure of where we are this season. We will always have injuries but things look fairly balanced with principal absentees being Jack and Drogba. What colour is the Torres hair. Blonde Torres worries the crap out of me, dark Torres and we don’t need centre backs at all.

Terry – what a statement ‘Remember who we are, we are Arsenal’ !!! Beautiful

My ex-boss was a Chav and a very good friend of mine; I admired and liked him, and loved his company. Sadly, we had fallen out over footy when Wayne Bridge kicked us out of the CL. I simply could not forgive him and although I miss him, the friendship is over :(

Oz,
I like your thinking of dropping The BFG to cope with Torres. My concern is RB and cutting off the supply from Mata and I feel Kos may do a better job than JD. Certainly we are going to be weaker offensively today down our right. Theo has to work very very hard today.

“Theo must work very very hard”, pssshhh, even when he does he achieves little. The whole team needs to work very very hard today. The Chavs will try to polish their tarnished image with our shirts, they will try to do a ManU on us, watch it

Chas,
Somehow there is less pressure today. Stoke and Sunderland were must win games and you could sense the tension both on and off the pitch. We have built up a small head of steam and although I would take the draw, an away win would really set us up. Concentration will be key in the moments after the Robin goals. Yes, plural.

Picture Big Raddy right now. Pacing up and down massaging the grey stuff. Then slumped over his Apple Mac deleting JD at RB, then Copy Pasting him back in.
My thoughts are with you during these troublesome moments.

Nay, Raddy has done his homework already, I bet the post is the drafts ready for release; just a few final touches, Peaches removes a few swearwords, Rasp slams a picture or two and voila ‘New post….’ arrives at 9:30 precisely

Evonne, I would have you know that thanks to some very simple and explicit instructions from Rasp, I can construct the post entirely independently. Thank you very much. (apart from Peaches cleaning up my foul and abusive language)

Micky. You should do Guess the Weight. Frighteningly accurate – I weigh 12 stone 8 and a half (80kg)!!